Colorado River State Park

While it was awfully tempting to stay in lovely Utah for some more exploring, we already had a reservation back in Colorado at a state park for the upcoming week, so back to Colorado we went. This week we’re on the very western side of the state at the James M. Robb Colorado River State Park (could they have picked a longer name?) Both Nina and Ingrid gave this park rave reviews so I knew it would be nice, but I didn’t know it would be this nice.

That James M. Robb sure has a nice park

The sites are large, paved and level. In fact, our pull-thru site is so long we could probably fit another rig back there. Our front yard has a nice covered shelter that we lined our awning up with to create an extended shade/rain shelter. It’s come in handy this week during both the two days of rain, and the rest of the week of hot sun. Considering the fact that we’re minutes away from I-70 this park has a surprisingly rural feel to it. The sites are spaced very generously, and in between is a wild, lush landscape of sage brush, tall grasses, and leafy green trees.

Our giant back yard

The rest of the park is just as nice as the sites with a path along the river, a boat launch, and some lakes (lakes filled with e-coli so not safe for swimming in, but pretty to look at).

Sunset over Bookcliff Lake

The mighty Colorado River

The primary reason for our visit was that long strip of red rock ledge you see beyond the river. It’s called the Colorado National Monument, and once you get up in there it’s a pretty awesome place to explore. Since the entrance is only a few miles from our campground, we were able to visit a few times. I am planning to write an entire post on the monument, so for now you only get a one photo teaser of the main road entering the monument.

The Colorado National Monument

Ideally we would have spent even more time in the monument, since there’s a ton of trails we would have liked to hike. But real life called and we ended up spending most of our free time completing those mundane tasks that help remind us how life on the road is often similar to life in a stationary house. Tim had a big work project that sucked up some of his time, we got new tires for the Airstream, the drain valve on our fresh water tank sprung a leak and Tim fixed that, I eradicated the mouse droppings from our outside compartments and under sink area, did a ton of errands, a long overdue cleaning of the truck- inside and out, and we upped the mouse defense with more steel wool, more traps, and a stinky product a few readers recommended called Fresh Cab. So far no new mice have breached the defenses, but since we’re parked on a concrete pad right now, the real test will come next week when we get back out in the wild.

Mouse defense, Fixing what could have been a costly leak, Shiny new tires, the dirty drain valve & tube that sprang a leak, The spare tire doing it’s job while we get new tires

It wasn’t all boring around the house stuff though. The best part of the week was that we made some new full-timer friends! A few minutes after pulling into the park I got a comment from an Instagram follower saying, “I think you just pulled into the same park as us. We’re in the green Wanderlodge bus.” Yup, it was us. We even talked about how awesome that bus was as we drove past. I’ve said it before, and I am sure I’ll say it again, Instagram is the best way to meet people on the road. Once upon a time, not that long ago, I shunned all forms of social media. I resisted Facebook longer than most, thought Twitter was the stupidest idea ever, and had no desire to share snippets of my life on Instagram. Well, that all changed when we started traveling. Moving around the country as we do makes it hard to form connections with other people, and social media has become a super important way for us to not only meet other travelers, but connect with locals, learn about the place we are visiting, and even find job opportunities. I am still not 100% sold on that Twitter thing, but I do love my Instagram and are pleased to add Todd and Russ to the growing list of new friends we have made through the photo sharing site.

Love this Wanderlodge Bus!

Todd, Russ and and their two pups have been on the road full-time for a few months. They’ve been hanging around Colorado for nearly as long as us, and are heading to Utah next week, so it was a happy coincidence that we ended up in the same place at the same time. After our initial meeting, and tour of their ultra cool bus, we quickly made plans to have dinner together later in the week. I forget to take food pics, but we chowed down on a tasty spicy gazpacho, a roasted veggie & goat cheese flatbread, and a homemade peach cobbler. You know how sometimes you meet people who you instantly hit off with? That’s how we felt about Todd and Russ. Meeting other full-time travelers is almost always a sure thing since you immediately have a lot in common, but every once in awhile there’s more to it than simply a shared life-style choice.

Dinner guests Russ & Todd

It’s those times when it’s especially hard to say goodbye. Tomorrow we’ll go our separate ways as they head west and we head east. Sometimes it makes me sad when we meet people who we might not see again for years, or at all. It can be hard to say goodbye after only a few days, or a single afternoon together. I try to remind myself that had we stayed in one place, we would have never met any of these people, but it’s still hard to always be saying goodbye when we’ve only just met. I think it might be the single hardest thing about living as we do.

Some sunny sunflowers

Safe travels Todd and Russ! Enjoy Utah and we hope to run into you again somewhere down the road.